A proposed new law in Arizona would give employers the power to request that women being prescribed birth control pills provide proof that they're using it for non-sexual reasons. And because Arizona's an at-will employment state, that means that bosses critical of their female employees' sex lives could fire them as a result. If we could harness the power of the crappy ideas coming out of the state of Arizona, we could probably power a rocket ship to the moon, where there are no Mexicans or fertile wombs and everyone can be free to be as mean a cranky asshole as they want at all times! Arizona Heaven!

Yesterday, a Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Republican Debbie Lesko's HB2625 by a vote of 6-2, which would allow an employer to request proof that a woman using insurance to buy birth control was being prescribed the birth control for reasons other than not wanting to get pregnant. It's all about freedom, she said, echoing everyone who thinks there's nothing ironic about claiming that a country that's "free" allows people's bosses to dictate what medical care is available to them through insurance. First amendment. The constitution. Rights of religious people to practice the treasured tenets of their faiths, the tenets that dictate that religious people get to tell everyone who is not of faith how they're supposed to live, and the freedom to have that faith enforced by law. Freedom®.

Further, Lesko states, with a straight face, that this bill is necessary because "we live in America; we don't live in the Soviet Union."

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Ah, yes, the Soviet Union. The sort of place where a woman might think about getting birth control through an insurance plan to which she contributes premiums without having to show her boss her prescription in order to prove that she wasn't using it to not get pregnant. The Soviet Union. A hellscape where women don't run the risk of losing their jobs over their sexual practices. What a horrible, awful place where herds of sluts run wild like feral ponies, humping everything in sight. The nightmare of unwilling motherhood evaded is a constant spectre in The Motherland.

Anyway, this bill probably won't get anywhere; it violates all sorts of privacy laws and I can't imagine that female citizens of Arizona would be in favor of having their rights further legislated away by a chamber of mostly dudes trying to win votes from Team Jerk Version of Jesus. But that doesn't make it any less depressing. In fact, it's almost depressing enough to make a lady consider building a time machine so that she can take it back to 1985 and find some job security in the Soviet Union.